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Three of them? One of them a Mafia - the yellow-haired Human, just like he'd thought! Just like he'd known! - but, two others? That didn't make sense. The Arsonist should have been the blue-black dog from yesterday, so surely it couldn't be them. And surely it couldn't be another thing with hiding.
Hmm. Tefiren shook down his leaves and grinned to himself as he looked around, seeing the rest of the group staring, frozen, with no idea what'd happened. He didn't know either, not yet, but - how fun was it going to be to figure it all out? This was interesting!
[[I repeat: what the fuck. I am also a little bit sad that I don't actually get to go toe-to-toe with Lusamine today like I was looking forward to doing, but hey, at least she's out of the way now. If that was a vig, good shot, and thanks for listening to mine and Dave's and Nefari's suspicion of her yesterday!
...So, uh. Before we get into figuring out what the fuck just happened, the same as yesterday, I have spent a lot of time overnight thinking about things and preparing multiple morning wallposts for you all. These ones will have a lot more substantial value for anyone who isn't me than the last ones did, I promise. (Not that I'm not glad I went to the trouble of clarifying the point of my Day 1 gambit yesterday morning, since that seems to have ended up fairly influential in people's reads of me.)
And, uh, bear with me, because I'm going to have to edit them a little to take into account certain unexpected developments.]]
The creaks of natural armor approached Wes' side, and an alien-blue hand patted the human on his back. Fusion didn't know if mentioning that being dead wasn't all that bad would be in poor taste or not, so instead he said, "For what it's worth, we only have so many villains left amo-- within our ranks. There's still a chance to save everyone else."
He spent most of his time meditating, trying to see if he could... cheat the system somehow, regain some of his power, contact the other patrollers, anything... But it didn't work. All that time he wasted, floating in one place, could have been spent on following the happenings around him, but Fusion could only recall so much. Mostly because he didn't want to overwhelm himself with information and make himself vulnerable.
Now, he had to do his job. People were already dying, and maybe if he was around earlier, that number wouldn't be as high as it was. But he knew that dwelling on the what-ifs wasn't going to get him anywhere. Fusion stood up, taking a somewhat serious demeanor.
"Alright, head count for the sake of staying organized. Who else is still alive, or at least moreso than those three," he said, motioning his head towards the... well there was only really remnants of Lusamine so...
[[First, some reflection on all the readlists from yesterday evening. Doing this post entirely OOC, because Tefiren is still not very good at having opinions about people.
Jesse mentioned something in one of his posts about how he'd like to compile all the readlists together, and I agree that it'd be neat and potentially helpful to see at a glance how everyone is being read by the rest of the group, so I made a spreadsheet!
Everyone's reads, as of the end of Day 2
I did my best to try and fit the reads into consistent categories between each reader, but everyone's opinion of what constitutes "soft town" etc is going to differ slightly, so don't assume it always means exactly the same thing from person to person. This is more for overall comparison between everyone; don't take my interpretation of people's categories as definite fact about exactly what that person thought.
Lexx's are there too, but obviously remember he wasn't taking into account anything that happened on Day 2. If I keep doing this, maybe I'll keep including each dead person's most recent readlist before their death.
To be fair about this, I kept my own reads on here the same as they were in my readlist yesterday evening. However... a few things changed in the last few hours of the day and overnight, so here's an updated one.
Hard town
Dave Arctozolt
Mewtwo
Miyako
Medium town
Nefari Jesse
Soft town
Alexander
Kyros
Inactive null
Spark
Fusion
Cautious
Chappie
Altair
Namco
Suspicious Lusamine
Wes
For anybody I shifted within the town groups, my opinions of them didn't actually change; I just rethought my definitions of the town categories. For the ones I shifted towards the negative end, my opinions on them did change. Tefiren and I will be going into that in the next few posts.
"Hard town" is "if they were in danger of being lynched, I'd actively defend them". (Not that that's even a likely possibility for most of these, but. I discovered that this was my metric after it seemed briefly possible that a Miyako bandwagon might start yesterday and I realised I would actually go out of my way to defend her if that happened. I was going to put her on soft town before then.)
"Medium town" is "if they were in danger of being lynched, I'd at least want to know why and might argue against it".
"Soft town" is "if they were in danger of being lynched, I wouldn't vote for them myself but probably wouldn't argue that hard".
"Non-inactive null" (though I don't I currently have such a pile) is "wouldn't mind voting for them if there were no better options".
"Cautious" is "would definitely consider voting for them".
Tefiren had thought last night's vote would be boring, with everyone getting rid of somebody half-asleep for no actual reason. But after the messy Human had pointed out that doing such a thing would be exactly the kind of thing a Mafia could easily help along, he'd been a lot more interested, paying close attention to everything that went on and the things a certain few people said. Maybe he could figure something out from it after all.
So this morning, Tefiren was so ready and eager to talk about what he'd figured out that he didn't even bother to wait for everyone to finish gawking at - or not-at - the three people who weren't there any more. (It didn't matter anyway. Not even that they'd lost the half-zolt, the one who'd learned the trick to figure out if someone was a Mafia - Tefiren didn't need that trick. He could do this all himself!)
He scampered excitedly around the group, creating whooshes of air with his wing leaves to get everyone's attention, not caring that nobody was in the mood for this right now. They should have been.
"Listen! Listen! When we got rid of the blue-black dog last night, it was the best thing that could have possibly happened! Not only did we get rid of the one who was probably the Arsonist--" (just by luck, which wasn't very exciting, but still... still a relief) "--but, it was still also someone who wasn't Mafia. Any Mafia who voted to get rid of him must have thought they were tricking us into getting rid of an innocent! They wouldn't have known it'd help us just as much as it'd help them!"
He slunk over to the tall fiery fox's magic board, still there even though it's owner was gone, which had been finished with everything that had happened up until the end of the last day. "So, look, look! If you look at what happened yesterday with the voting, it's obvious who are the Mafia that were trying to trick us!"
[[
To be clear (I keep having to do this, thanks, Tefiren), the shade I'm about to throw is of course not actually obvious definite unambiguous proof of guilt. But I think it's very worth considering. [And, yep, turns out I was completely right about one of these!]
I'm going to start this off with a Jesse-style summary of how the voting went down. (That said, Tefiren's definitely not one for taking notes, even if he could actually write, so just imagine in-RP that he's using Jesse's board for reference. [That's, uh, more poignant than I was expecting it to be, considering that he's dead now.]) For the sake of keeping to the point, this will feature only details that are relevant to people's votes, particularly Lance votes, and not anything else that was being discussed at those times. I've tried to keep this reasonably objective, except for some occasional subjective notes in italic square brackets relevant to my upcoming argument.
So. Altair and Lusamine's voting behaviour and reasoning for it are looking kinda scummy to me. This is pretty much what Dave was getting at at the end of yesterday; I've spent some time overnight analysing it and feel like there's actually some more specific reasons to be side-eyeing it than he'd thought at the time.
- Lusamine made a post that sounded on the surface like it was reasoning out voting for Lance, but never actually explained why she voted for Lance when she usually thinks lynching inactives is bad town play.
- Altair claimed he was voting Lance as an extra precaution to protect Arctozolt when Arctozolt was already looking all but saved, and did not even consider changing his vote once Arctozolt was very definitely safe. (This is less obviously scummy than Lusamine and could potentially be genuine, but I'm still a bit cautious.)
Both of them showed no indication of being willing to change their vote to Wes after Dave pointed out that jumping on an inactive bandwagon in the way they did was vaguely scummy, even though that could have changed the outcome of the lynch.
Which brings us to Wes himself. I don't think his behaviour surrounding his vote was nearly as scummy as the other two, for multiple reasons:
He voted Lance when it was 2:1:1 Arctozolt:Wes:Lance, so this could have been motivated by a desire to protect Arctozolt (though he didn't ever mention that).
The only other candidate on the table was himself, which was obviously not an option.
He did express some desire to change his vote later on, to Cold Fusion, if enough others were willing (another inactive, but to be fair, the only other option that might have gone somewhere in time was still himself).
However, the fact that the other two rather scummy-looking voters didn't even consider switching their votes to Wes is still not a good look for him. [Especially now that Lusamine has flipped mafia, hm!]
To clarify my point about how Wes might have deliberately got the Lance train rolling with sinister intent: I believe that he probably saw Alexander's vote and was influenced by that. However, if you're mafia, and you see that someone else has put one loose vote on an inactive townie, of course you'd be happy to try and get that bandwagon actually moving - whereas, hypothetically, if Lance /had/ been mafia as well, you could just start a different bandwagon on an actually-town inactive and quietly hope nobody latches onto the loose vote on Lance. Wes's vote is not necessarily suspect and could have easily had innocent motives, I'm not denying the possibility, but it's also entirely possible that it could have been a mafioso trying to manipulate the lynch.
As a somewhat separate topic, I was willing to not side-eye Namco after I saw them say they'd be offline for the rest of the day and may have just not seen that they shouldn't have been voting Arctozolt any more. But then they did show up just before end of day and didn't move their vote. They may not have read enough of the thread to have seen everything that went down, but still, hmm. (...However, for the sake of what Tefiren's explaining to everyone about my reasoning in-RP right now, imagine he doesn't mention this. He's very focused on the first three.)
(Completely unrelated to my shade-throwing, on the topic of voting: Chappie and Miyako's votes got counted as Abstain votes, whereas based on their posts, it seems like they may have meant to just not vote at all. They're both new to the game, so as a heads-up: there's a meaningful difference from an "Abstain" vote, which is that you are actively voting to abstain from lynching anyone today, and a "no vote", which is that you don't have an opinion on what to do and you're happy to let everyone else decide. If what you want is the latter, you don't need to post any bolded message at all, because everyone's default state is no vote.)]]
One death was expected. Another two was unlikely. But three.
Well... it appeared this game would be quick at least.
Innocents were dropping quickly, though, and the Mafia member. Mewtwo honed in the scorch mark she had left behind. But the silent Lucario they had removed yesterday...had he been the arsonist?
Mewtwo looked to the human who had fallen to the ground. His emotion rang through the air.
For now, Mewtwo forgot that Wes was human and they were Mewtwo. Mewtwo dropped from their den, to the ground with the rest. What did the human do last night?
That turned to what Mewtwo had done. Sitting in their den after night had fallen, considering all the players. They let the fall of the dice decide their final answer. They ground on Mewtwo, that odd two-minded Pokemon with their baffling actions the day before. But, Mewtwo considered it might be wise not to risk losing a possible advantage.
As they had done the previous two nights--first with the human Lexx, then with Archopy--Mewtwo silently approached the sleeping Arctozolt and lit their eyes and a hand with a soft lavender light. The aura of a Heal Pulse filled the air--Mewtwo fled before it could even dissipate.
Except, Arztovolt was dead.
The Luxio. Wes. A hidden killer among them.
Someone, somehow, had circumnavigated Mewtwo's protection. How.
[[wtf wtf wtf wtf. The Arsonist may still be alive?!? what -- *screaming* -- also hi I'm a Healer Mewtwo is a big softy on the inside bruhhhhhhh
Will probably be my only post until morning, but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
]]
Weird that nobody protected Bench. Think the Arsonist killed uA and Lusa.
I've been told to chose my ability. I have until the end of the coming night to do so or else I will be VT for the rest of the game, which I reaaally do not want.
So. Asking the thread.
Which ability would be better?
One death was expected. Another two was unlikely. But three.
Well... it appeared this game would be quick at least.
Innocents were dropping quickly, though, and the Mafia member. Mewtwo honed in the scorch mark she had left behind. But the silent Lucario they had removed yesterday...had he been the arsonist?
Mewtwo looked to the human who had fallen to the ground. His emotion rang through the air.
For now, Mewtwo forgot that Wes was human and they were Mewtwo. Mewtwo dropped from their den, to the ground with the rest. What did the human do last night?
That turned to what Mewtwo had done. Sitting in their den after night had fallen, considering all the players. They let the fall of the dice decide their final answer. They ground on Mewtwo, that odd two-minded Pokemon with their baffling actions the day before. But, Mewtwo considered it might be wise not to risk losing a possible advantage.
As they had done the previous two nights--first with the human Lexx, then with Archopy--Mewtwo silently approached the sleeping Arctozolt and lit their eyes and a hand with a soft lavender light. The aura of a Heal Pulse filled the air--Mewtwo fled before it could even dissipate.
Except, Arztovolt was dead.
The Luxio. Wes. A hidden killer among them.
Someone, somehow, had circumnavigated Mewtwo's protection. How.
[[wtf wtf wtf wtf. The Arsonist may still be alive?!? what -- *screaming* -- also hi I'm a Healer Mewtwo is a big softy on the inside bruhhhhhhh
Will probably be my only post until morning, but AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
]]
He'd not been sure when or how, only that he had. Or perhaps it was that everyone was on edge -- not that he could blame them, given three of their own had been killed in the night. One of those dead had been a murderer. That made this game twice as dangerous.
Danger wasn't really high on his list of things to brush up with. He wondered if getting killed here sent you back to where you came from. But he wasn't going to risk assuming that, not when there was the option to win, and winning had to be better than losing somehow. But if he could just keep a low profile to the end... squeeze by without attracting the worst kind of spotlight... maybe he had a chance to get out of this.
He just had to keep his secret to the end.
[[Granted, I've only played two or three of these. But I think that's the most nightkills I've seen in a single night ever... feels like there are some dangerous night roles flying about.]]
[[This other idea I've had is all about the mechanics and the "tricks", so I'll let Tefiren take it away from here. Brace yourselves; he's been brimming with anticipation for this for half the night, and he's not going to let this morning's shenanigans put him off.]]
"So, so!" Tefiren went on, still buzzing with glee, so excited that the words were almost falling out of his mouth in the wrong order. "So, those three are all definitely Mafia. I was right about the yellow-haired Human, so I'm definitely also right about the funny-arm Human, and the big dark bird! Simple. Easy! But! But, what next? What about the rest? It won't just be three of them!
"And then, I was thinking, about something else that happened yesterday. Pretty much the only thing the funny-arm Human's even done here except for stupidly try and make me sound bad. Remember? He encouraged the thunder cat to tell us what she did the night before, and what she knew about the fun Human being caught. And you know who else tried to encourage her to do the same thing?"
(It was almost strange, how he was finding himself so good at remembering all these things that people had done. He didn't usually have any reason to pay attention to other people. But! But then again, this game was all about paying attention to the people, and he was good at this game. So it only made sense, really, that he'd be good at that while he was playing this game. He just didn't usually need to be, that was all. Yes.)
"It was the yellow-haired Human, and the big dark bird! All three of them together, and nobody else! Isn't that funny? Don't you think that's funny? All three of them are Mafia, and they all just happened to be the ones encouraging the thunder cat to tell us what she knew?
"Oh, but of course they didn't want her to actually tell us. No, of course not! That'd make it too obvious! They all said they didn't want her to actually say what her trick was unless she was okay with it. They weren't trying to get her in trouble, that's what they want you to think. But it's because of them that she said enough about it that anybody with any sense could guess!
"So maybe, maybe they just wanted her to tell them enough that they could guess her trick, so they could know how worried to be about her. But! What if? What if what if what if..." --he bounced on the tip of his toes, grinning all over his face, about to get to the best part-- "the thunder cat was a Mafia, too? What if that whole conversation, all of her being sad about it and not sure if she should tell us anything, the other three encouraging her to spill it... what if it was all made up?"
He'd rounded on the thunder cat now, stalking around her as she looked warily up at him. "Not your trick, though! Your trick was real. You really did swap the fun Human and the tiny Raichu. There'd be too much risk that someone else could disprove your story if you were lying about that.
"But if you swapped those two, and you're also a Mafia... everything would make sense! We were all so confused about why the Mafia would ever go for that tiny Raichu who's just been napping this whole time! But if they knew about the swap, because the swapper was one of them, it'd have been on purpose, and they were trying to catch the fun Human after all!"
He giggled, peering down at the thunder-cat. "You almost fooled me! I said yesterday, that I thought someone else must have done something to mess it up - someone blocked you, or someone else did another swap. But why would a Mafia block you, when you barely even said anything on the first day? Would a Mafia swapper, if you aren't a Mafia, really just happen to guess the same swap you did, to cancel it out? Or, why would the Mafia just actually go for the tiny Raichu? All of those are so unlikely! It makes so much more sense if it was all on purpose."
He finished stalking around the thunder-cat and turned back to the rest of the group, slinking through them as he spoke. "But even if she did that, because the Mafia thought that was the best way to catch the fun Human... why would she tell us? Why would they make a big show of her saying it like it was a big accident, like it only happened because she was sad? All that does is put her at risk of being found out, if anyone clever enough - like me! - realises this is the only way things make sense." He barked out a laugh. "Really, what are the chances of someone as good as the fun Human getting caught first just because of a swap, by accident?" (He found himself almost wanting to add "again" to that sentence, for some reason.) "Ridiculous!
"But there's one reason the thunder-cat might tell us. Because she seemed really sure at first that the Mafia actually tried to catch the tiny Raichu, even though that doesn't make any sense. And we all thought, when we were thinking about getting rid of one of the sleepy quiet ones yesterday, that at least it shouldn't be the tiny Raichu, because maybe the Mafia targeted her, so she probably isn't a Mafia! But... what if that was the point? What if they were trying to make the tiny Raichu look innocent?"
He'd been trying to find the tiny Raichu the whole time he'd been talking about her, except he couldn't. Instead, there was someone new - a medium-sized purple fox? But he just knew somehow that this was the same person as the tiny Raichu, just transformed. (What an interesting trick!)
He reached the new fox and peered down at him, grinning a huge wide grin. "That's the last one. That makes five. I've figured out all of them."
Tefiren turned back to the whole group, throwing back his head and letting out a huge, crowing laugh of triumph. "I've figured out everything! I've already won this game, all by myself!"
The giggles were taking him over, huge, forceful, uncontrollable giggling, his whole body shaking with unrepressed mirth. "You tried to catch me, right at the start, because you knew how good I am at this game and you were scared of how I'd outsmart you all! But you couldn't, because you should have known that nobody can catch me! I escaped, like I always do, and then I figured out all of you, just like you knew I would!" His grin grew more fervent, as his voice rose to a roaring crescendo. "How scared are you now, hm?!"
Tefiren paused to take a few satisfied huffs of breath as his giggling slowed down a bit, though he was still grinning all over his face. "Maybe you shouldn't have even tried to catch me in the first place," he taunted. "You were always going to fail, obviously, but it's because you even tried that I could do my guessing game! And it's because of my guessing game that the funny-arm Human tried to make me look suspicious - and the yellow-haired Human, too! You thought, because you realised that you can't ever catch me, that your only choice was to try and get people to get rid of me in the day - what a silly move! Obviously I'd figure you out from that! And because of that, I voted for the funny-arm Human, and that let me figure out the voting and how obvious three of you were, and then from that I figured out the rest!
"All of it was because you knew I'm the best at this game, so you tried to catch me! It all started with that!" He stalked some more in fierce, tight circles, not around anyone in particular, staring up at the blank white sky. "I don't need anyone else to be able to win this! All of it was me!
"And the best part? I didn't even need to use my tricks! I won the last game using my tricks, all by myself, but that was way too easy! So this time, I thought it'd be fun if I didn't even use my tricks at all - except escaping, of course! - to make it a challenge, to give you Mafia a chance! But - ha! - it was still too easy! I'm the best at this game!"
[[...And this is the point at which Tefiren was going to round on Lusamine and declare that he'd start with her, but, welp, never mind that. I guess you can have the short bit of non-canon RP that I'd prepared for that event, because I was very much not expecting her to be dead.]]
"So!" Tefiren said in conclusion, turning back to the yellow-haired Human and peering up at her. "You seem like the smartest. Not smart enough to not do something stupid like trying to make me look suspicious yesterday for reasons that don't even make sense, but smarter than the rest, at least. It was probably you whose idea it was to try and catch me at the start, wasn't it?"
He giggled again as he remembered the thrill of that chase - the exhilaration of feeling something unseen and terrible reaching for him, right at his tail, yet never close enough - and then his grin faded, and he stared right into the yellow-haired Human's eyes, something dark and forceful in his voice that wasn't usually there. "Let's start with you."
[[
To be completely clear... all of the theatrics and utter certainty about all five [uhh, four now, I guess] of these suspects is all Tefiren. I'm letting him embody my excitement at the thought of having possibly cracked this whole thing overnight, while on my end I'm restraining myself and trying to remain realistic about things. I do not want a repeat of last game's D3 where I very fervently and determinedly mislynched someone because I tunnel-visioned so hard that I refused to look at any evidence that I could be wrong, so I'm going to be a lot more conservative about things this time. Maybe I've just blown the whole game wide open and discovered all five mafia (assuming there's five, seems like a reasonable number; maybe it could be six?) in one fell swoop, man that'd be awesome... but chances are that that's too good to be true and I'm off about a fair bit of it. Still, I feel like there's some merit to my theories and that there's a very good chance that at least some of these people are mafia.
(Tefiren is also distinctly "forgetting" to mention the part where Dave's insight into how inactive lynching is a really easy play for Mafia was an important starting point for me thinking about all of this at the end of yesterday. Nah, he totally figured that out himself too, it was all him and nobody else, he is the best.)
The mafia-Chappie theory in particular is pretty much just speculation right now and one I don't necessarily want to focus on too hard for the time being. It's also still perfectly possible that Chappie's roleclaim was genuine and there really was some other unlikely factor in play to explain N1's events. But I at least wanted to throw it out there as a hypothetical theory as to how Chappie could be mafia - regardless of Wes, Lusamine and Altair, really - just to keep that in the back of everybody's minds as something we might want to look into later. If there's any holes in my logic as to how this is possible (or you just want me to explain what Tefiren was getting at in my own words), do tell me. Mostly, I'd just like to see what everyone else makes of this and if people agree that I could be onto something here.
...And then here *I* was going to say that for today I'd like to focus on Lusamine, but, well. I guess instead I'll just throw this all out there and see what people think. Also we're going to be quite busy for a while figuring out how the hell three people died aaaaaaa]]
Looking at ely's chart and it stands out to that Miyako is the only coloured square in Lusa's column that's not green. Phan straight up said she was suspicious of Seren... but voted an inactive instead??
Dave'd been fucking right about Lusamine. That creepy weirdo'd been one of the mafia, and now she was gone. One down, plus the lucky break of the likely arsonist who'd probably never even done anything. They were getting somewhere.
He'd dared to hope the fossil chimera would make it, but it was a faint hope, after they'd gone and outed themselves as the one person the mafia'd most want gone. Of course they'd go for them as soon as possible, and use all they had. Poor bastard.
And then...
Dave's fingers tightened on his arm as the players stared at the Delphox's dumb fucking cowboy clothes lying in the street, empty but for the dust scattering in the wind. Good fucking riddance. Probably targeted him for all the stupid note-taking, hadn't they? Literally worked himself to death keeping a fucking record of everything.
Fucker'd just kept agreeing with him and trying to see him as innocent. Why? He was a bastard. Last time they'd met he'd forcibly scoured his mind for shitty memories to prove a point. If anyone deserved to get vaporized in the board game dimension it was him. It wasn't even fucking real.
He pressed his lips together. Whatever. They were carrying on. Dumb fucking game wasn't going to play itself.
[[hello yes sorry this is pure RP, may make a short OOC post if I have something particularly noteworthy to say after catching up with mechanics posts but otherwise I'm on my way to bed]]
Three of them. Three more illusions gone, but only one of them was mafia. The blind removal of the potential Arsonist as well as one of the Mafia overnight should've raised his spirits, yet he couldn't help but feel uneasy. Two more innocents were down, if things continued at this rate, things would be heading South for him very quickly. Looking over those missing, Altair would miss the delphox. He talked sense and his notes had been incredibly helpful with his note taking. On the other hand, the mismatched abomination he would spare no remorse for. It had what was coming to it after that performance, yet he couldn't help but seethe over the fact that they'd just lost a valuable asset.
The blonde woman on the other hand, had been Mafia all along. He felt almost stupid of defending her on that first day. Perhaps he'd been a bit too harsh on Purple-tail...
[[HOOKAY, that was some news and a half. Before I start getting into more theory crafting on what might've happened last night, I want to get one thing out of the way. I wanted to get this out there D2 but couldn't because I didn't have enough time before EoD.
Normally, I’d wait until EoD to bring this up but it has come to my attention that some people have considered my reads inadequate due to a lack of elaboration (even though several others in this thread have done the same thing with even less but I digress). So during the 48 hour night period, I sat down and typed out all my reasonings for listing my readings as such. First, my D2 list since it’s a more refined version of my D1 list. D2 was a mess all around, with a general lack of new information regarding most players, so my reads and reasonings have remained mostly the same:
Hard Town:
Nefari
Tefiren
Dave
Town:
Jesse
Kyros
Chappie
Soft Town:
Mewtwo
Alexander
Neutral:
Wes
Namco
Lusamine
Miyako
Arctozolt
Now, my reasonings. From top to bottom:
HARD TOWN
I’ve already outlined why I think Nefari can’t be anything but innocent in this post, but to surmise, her claim felt far too elaborate/risky to be anything but innocent. This is the same case with Tefiren. Argue as much as you’d like about how strange the gambit was but I don’t think this something that the Mafia would do. It’s just not worth the risk. If we do entertain the idea that Tefiren is Mafia and pulled off this big elaborate gambit to gain Town favour, why do it this early in the game? If it failed, then the Mafia just crippled itself from the word go and just made the game harder to win.
Dave is mechanically confirmed if Arctozolt wasn’t lying when they claimed Lexx (and subsequently, themselves) as Cop, as Lexx all but stated that he inspected Dave N0. Additionally, there’s the fact that Lexx seemed confident in Dave’s innocence, further backing up this point.
TOWN
Generally, my feelings on these players boil down to “yeah, I feel good about them” but I’ll do my best to explain why. Jesse and Kyros land here because their posts come off as very pro-town to me, with both being investigative and trying to gather information for the town. Jesse more than Kyros, due to all the notetaking to ensure nothing slips through the cracks. I’ve been attempting to play in this way as well, but it’s clear that I’m definitely not as good as those two.
I’ll be the first to admit that Chappie is a bit more of a stretch and should probably be listed under “soft town” but her posts don’t read as suspicious to me at all. Yes, she is a Bus Driver, which is (from my knowledge at least, please correct me if I’m wrong here) typically a more Mafia-aligned role but that doesn’t mean she’s not innocent. There was an innocent Bus Driver in the last anniversary game and Chappie could very well be another one as she seemed genuinely upset when she realised that she failed to keep the heat off Lexx. Again, it could just be her tone that’s painting my view of her but as of the time writing this, I see no reason to suspect her. Just a gut feeling, y’know?
SOFT TOWN
I’ve seen a lot of people insisting that Mewtwo is innocent based on playstyle alone and ngl, that doesn’t sit right with me. How do you know that Mewtwo isn’t actually Mafia and Equitial is just emulating his innocent playstyle to keep suspicion off him? (This is not an accusation, just a hypothetical, as you can see, me listing him here is a sign that I have a bit of a good feeling towards him.) Regardless, he does make good points and seems to have the best intentions at heart. What I didn’t like about Mewtwo and the reason I put him here instead of alongside Jesse and Kyros was his general aggression D1. Yes, I understand the need to put pressure on players but it felt more like he was just throwing accusations for the heck of it rather than actively trying to root out scum with it. That’s just my reading though and I very well could be off base here, but again, that’s what I got from his tone.
Alexander on the other hand has actually risen from a neutral reading. I admittedly felt a little off about him D1 and I get the feeling that it was mostly due to his flavour, however his performance D2 has given me a more positive outlook on him. He’s been focused on helping out the town more than anyone else and is consistently bringing up valid points about other players, helping prevent misreads/lynches. The read is still admittedly soft but I suspect that it’ll rise as the game progresses.
NEUTRAL
I’ve already stated in brief why I read Wes the way I did D2. Mainly his aggression towards Tefiren alongside his previous jump at Arctozolt on D1. This kind of aggression does not read well in the slightest BUT it reads far more misguided than actively malicious. HelloYellow17 is a new player and actively hounding a rookie player for inexperienced play is not a good look. She comes off more as looking for motive and suspecting from there rather than actively pushing against someone for their general play. Still, it’s not something that should be looked over if this type of play continues.
I have little to say about Namco. They’re barely active, and is therefore hard to read. This could be a case of keeping silent to fly under the radar (lurking is a known tactic to be used by Mafia, especially now that one of the inactives turned out to be the fucking Arsonist) or, Mellow could just be busy and therefore not have that much time for the game. I don’t feel strongly either way here.
Lusamine I’ve been feeling very neutral on since the beginning, not contributing much aside from flavour and the general observation here and there. I will say that I’m more suspicious of her now after some of her interactions with Tefiren after I released this list, so whether or not she starts actively reading scum to me is dependent on her D3 performance. I’ll keep the neutral read for now but it’s not a confident one.
Miyako. Boy, am I not confident about this one. Miyako is skirting the very edges of a neutral and scum read. Like Mewtwo and Wes, Miyako is an aggressive player, actively pushing on Mewtwo D1 only standing down when others started getting suspicious of her. However, unlike those two, she isn’t very informative nor does she come off as misguided. All her observations have been pretty standard and easy to make thus far. Sure, this could all just be inexperience, but I’m still wary of her.
Obviously, these are all subject to change over the next 47 or so hours.
Yes, I am a little grumpy because my attempts to help out by combing through the thread and bringing new information to the table is being waved off for no apparent reason. All of my effortposts have been active attempts to theory craft and dig up new info—which I wouldn’t consider “uncontroversial” or without “specific reasoning”. I thought I was doing a decent enough job when I managed to parse out IFBench’s gambit and even called out the possibility that he was Backup before he even confirmed it but clearly, that’s not the case. Thanks for making me feel like I wasted my time. Appreciate it.
Additionally, I just straight up didn't have the time to make anymore posts after I made my last OOC post, which is why I didn't change my vote even after Arctozolt fell down to one vote. If I had the time to make an additional post, I would've abstained after Arctozolt was confirmed to be safe. I just didn't want to take any chances and wanted to widen the gap. In hindsight, it was a pretty hasty decision and one that doesn't reflect well on me but it was also one I would not have made if I wasn't Town because of the bandwagon accusation.
This admittedly ticked me off more than it probably should have. Your experiences are not universal. People are different and I’m not you. I don’t type well on mobile because I get physically uncomfortable real quick. Doubly so when it’s the first thing I do in the morning. Wave it off as an excuse if you want but using personal anecdotes like “well I play mafia entirely mobile” to write me off comes off as inconsiderate at best to me.]]
This means there's an Arsonist who places psychic marks- which means the Arsonist would most likely be a character with psychic capability. [[note, I'm using brackets to indicate ooc. I would caution against believing psychic characters to have a higher chance of having that role. Negrek...
Wes nodded gratefully to the...strange blue being before getting back to his feet. He noticed Mewtwo stewing in confusion while Tefiren was already bounding around spitting out theories—unspurprisingly, theories about him.
Gods. Dammit.
He drew himself up with a snarl. Fine. Fine. He’d been trying to lay low for his own safety, but at this point, he was useless, anyway. The mafia could target him all they liked, but he was not about to let himself be marked as a killer.
He marched up to the Grovyle and hissed through clenched teeth, fury burning in his chest—not at the lively Pokemon, but at himself. He’d been nothing but detrimental to everyone’s safety since he got here, and even after all his efforts...
“Listen to me,” he snarled “I’m only gonna say this once and I’ll make it very clear: I am not a killer. I’m an Arceus-damned healer, alright? And I might be useless as shit at it, but I’m trying, alright? So stop wasting your energy on me and find the real killers before you screw us all over with your personal grudges!”
[[Gonna just clarify here that Wes’ frustration and anger here is purely flavor here. But yeah, I was trying to lay low to avoid being target, but since I can’t seem to get people off my back, I’m forced to roleclaim 😅 WHICH. If Mewtwo is also a healer and target Bench last night...that explains why Arctozolt was eliminated. If two healers target the same person, they die. So, uh...big whoops...
Actually, can’t deaths still happen after the Arsonist dies? Or am I understanding that incorrectly? Either way, it seems we might have a vigilante on our hands.]]
This admittedly ticked me off more than it probably should have. Your experiences are not universal. People are different and I’m not you. I don’t type well on mobile because I get physically uncomfortable real quick. Doubly so when it’s the first thing I do in the morning. Wave it off as an excuse if you want but using personal anecdotes like “well I play mafia entirely mobile” to write me off comes off as inconsiderate at best to me.]]
Yes, she is a Bus Driver, which is (from my knowledge at least, please correct me if I’m wrong here) typically a more Mafia-aligned role but that doesn’t mean she’s not innocent.
Most Bus Drivers are innocent but scum Bus Drivers are not uncommon.
My issue is her N1 action choice and the fact that her claim is the most likely known explanation that Bench is dead.
[[ Okay, to start with... my Day 2 catch-up that I was not able to post due to work.
First of all, note from Future Me, after typing this all up: I'm sorry for the overall salt and OOC-ness in this post. Things have kind of been grating on my mental health the last few days, not all of it related to the game, but there is something here that really hasn't helped either, and I just didn't have the energy to keep in-character. I'm calmer now after a few days to just catch my breath. ]]
"Then there's Miyako. The gal doesn't not read like an inexperienced townie, but I've been pretty wary about her. I might just be forgettin' how Mewtwo's behaviour looks to a newcomer to these games, but that push against 'em fer seekin' info felt like a push fer mislynch that she climbed down from. I'm also perceivin' that one of her longest bursts of speechifyin' was an appeal to emotion t'defend herself and tryin' to direct attention to the Arsonist on what I believe are shaky grounds.
[[ Just to make it clear: I absolutely was not pushing for any sort of lynch so early. Again, I've made my opinion on baseless accusations very clear. That's what Mewtwo's playstyle is, but without knowing that at the time, that was my reason for going after them. You can call this one my playstyle. As far as the issue of the arsonist, I was simply trying to figure out just how Lexx and Rascal could have both died at the same night and, being the newbie I am, hadn't even considered that there were roles that could cause multiple people to die from the same source. It also didn't make any sense why they didn't target Nefari instead. Since the general concensus is that that wasn't how it happened, this is a moot point, either way.
On another tangent with current information: I do realize, with Lusamine ending up being mafia as the Lance-voting train suggested and her death has now confirmed, that my coincidental "defense" of her makes me look bad by extension. My defense against that stands; I went after Mewtwo for targeting someone who hadn't done anything and I didn't like it. It had nothing to do with Lusamine; I'd have done the exact same if Mewtwo themselves were under fire instead. So, naturally, of course I climbed down from it after, once like the entire group of veterans jumped down my throat about how that was a normal play-style. The "appeal to emotion" was just in-character flavoring. ]]
[[I'm sorry, my phrasing has been absolutely terrible and I am braindead today. You HAVE been active, what Wes is saying that, despite your activity, he's still unsure what side Miyako is on because she's remained pretty ambiguous so far.]]
[[ I suppose that's fair, although the only reason I'm ambiguous is that I simply don't have enough hard scum reads. Going after someone (Mewtwo) that I suspected at first based on their aggression only made people suspicious of me. It's only logical that I'm going to be more guarded with who I'm actually suspicious of now, after that kind of reaction. ]]
Hm. Wes could relate to Alexander's annoyance--though, he supposed, he hadn't exactly been the best at earning everyone's trust so far. Gods-dammit. Dealing with other people really wasn't his strong suit...
[[ For the record, I'm honestly glad I'm not the only newbie that's causing confusion for people this game. If this were just me alone, I'd probably have just bowed out from shame, embarrassment, and frustration after day 1. ]]
Still, among all the silent members present, there was one that caught Wes' attention. He frowned at the Lucario. [[Lance is a Lucario, right? hhhh I'm trying to keep track of everyone I'm sorry]] "I'm not sure if I've heard anything from you this whole time. If you're not going to share your thoughts, then I have no choice but to suspect you."
[[ Also for the record, I absolutely still don't like the idea of kicking out inactives for any reason, despite how valid it might be as a strategy... however, I DO acknowledge it despite the fact that I don't like it.
With that said though, we can now laugh over the arguing about the chances of Tefiren's bulletproof not-death on n-0, because aren't the chances of killing the arsonist blind even more unlikely? ]]
So yesterday I went after Mikayo because Miyasato went after Mewtwo for what seemed to me like frivolous, scum-motivated reasons. I recognized Mikayakoto wasn't experienced, but I recognized my own first-time scumplay in them. After watching today, Misayakatako isn't setting off more alarm bells but also isn't easing me that much. Mikayamamiyako's inexperience is definitely blurring the line and I'm trying to keep what others say in perspective as I view them, but I still lean Miyakasatmimatako as scummy and want to watch and see. ]]
[[ Okay, the name thing was honestly hilarious, and it was a hit over on the discord. Legit positive that this wasn't done with malice, but rather as a joke since Equital already got her name wrong previously several times by accident and now is mocking themselves for it.
With that out of the way, though, I'm about to get very salty, very quickly: Honestly. In my opinion, baselessly accusing someone else, simply to "get the ball rolling" as it were, seemed just as frivolous from my point of view and I wanted to understand why it was being done. I still disagree with it. However, as several people had vouched for it being not just an accepted play, but a common one, that is why I backed off it. Not because it was making people suspicious of me. I wasn't actually sussing you hard, I just... did not comprehend why you were jumping on someone the way you did. Both because I didn't understand that it was your playstyle and because I frankly still disagree with it AS a playstyle. But just because I disagree with it doesn't mean it isn't valid, and again, you've had several people vouch for you, which is why I let it drop. I saw no point arguing against a widely accepted playstyle when no one else but the newbie sees it as questionable.
That's literally all there is to it. I don't know how many more times I need to repeat this to get my point across, but there it is again. That was my entire line of thinking when questioning Mewtwo Day-1. That's it.
I apologize, to everyone, if it sounds like I'm really pissed off at this, because frankly, I am. I'm not mad at anyone in particular (except maybe myself), only the situation I've gotten myself into due to a rookie mistake. It's not fun to be repeatedly under fire simply for not knowing how to play the game correctly. I get that the point of the game is to question everything so I get why people are on my case about this, but it literally boils down to I am a newbie and did not realize this was a standard, common thing to do, and I'm at a loss as to how else to convince anyone of this, and it's really damn annoying, especially when there are more pressing matters we should be paying attention to.
Again, I am not upset with anyone in particular, so I am sorry if it feels like I'm taking this too seriously or bringing down the mood.
Also for the record while on the subject (and I know this one is pure selfishness on my part) it bothers me that no one was really questioning AbraPunk when THEY voted for Mewtwo for the same reasons as me (fast aggression doesn't sit well with them, either.) Was it really just because I was the one pushing it and trying to get info as to why? Because legit, I just did not realize it was a widely accepted style of play.
Ughhh... okay, rant over. Sorry. Now that that's out of the way, I'll try to get back on track.
Miyako - no, really. apparently I'm alone on this, but I am absolutely ready to go to bat for her if it ever looks like she's going to be lynched, unless something significantly changes my view on her
[[ Again, color me surprised. I'm definitely curious as to why (considering everyone else seems to read me as null at best) but I'm not going to ask your reasoning unless it actually becomes necessary. ]]
"Namco's somebody who actually strikes me as being inactive in a suspect kind of way. Been around but just slipping under the radar. Altair and Lusamine jumped on the Lance train here in a way I'm not a fan of. Feeling the need to sit there writing up a more elaborate justification for targeting the guy who's literally a vegetable that a consensus is forming on, like they've got something to prove. Not exactly concrete proof of anything but I just don't fucking like it."
[[ There's also the fact that, at this point, there were like three other inactives sitting there to target, and yet there was this justification for only the one who had already been singled out. But other than that, Dave sums this up in a way that I likely wouldn't be coherent about, but essentially this is along the lines of what I was thinking when I no-voted. (I have a problem articulating my thoughts. I get it.) ]]
[[...You know, seeing Dragonfree's post, it really is giving me pause that three of the people currently on the Lance train - Wes, Lusamine and Altair - are pretty low on most everyone's readlists. Wes was basically the one to start the train here as we began to approach lynch o'clock, and without him having done that, we might not be doing this at all. (Alexander's vote was first, but that was cast sometime way earlier and is less likely to influence people right now.)
[[ Honestly, it would kind of make sense that, if they were mafia, Wes triggered the vote-against-Lance train only after someone (in this case, Alexander) already picked out a scapegoat for them. That doesn't mean that I think Alexander is mafia, either, simply that all the mafia agreed, once a suitable target was voted on by someone else, to all target them, too, and had to come up with reasons why it made sense to target an inactive, while also trying to cover for why they ignored the *other* inactives. They didn't have to come up with reasons for anyone else once one person was singled out.
(For the record, this is just another reason I'm against voting for inactives, and also chose to no-vote that night. Keep in mind here that it just so happened to work out in everyone's favor this time, but that absolutely does not mean that I approve of the "strategy" nor does it mean that any of those three are less suspicious. Who they happened to hit is irrelevant, unless they can prove they knew Lance was the arsonist - otherwise, the way they went about voting for him is still questionable.) ]]
Let me confirm this right out the gate: Yes. This is my first game of mafia, so I want to reassure that I can/will make mistakes/or a bad read or two. As for this to cause suspicion, my reasons for hoping against it was because this extremely early in the game. Like, in the first 30 minutes. While I understand putting pressure on other players, accusing others right out the gate didn't read right to me (also I wanted an excuse to get Altair in on the action).
[[ I'm going to be honest here... I'm kind of miffed how all of the other newbies are seen as newbies for making mistakes while I'm being sussed. Just because I went harder out of the gate? If accusing others out of the gate didn't sit right to people, then it would make sense for anyone who thought similar to sit back and let me take the heat despite thinking the same thing, also as a newbie. Could have at least piped up with "I don't like the approach either but that doesn't make it questionable". The fact that people are now claiming the exact thing I was (and STILL AM) getting flak for simply because I wanted to actually play the game and dove into trying to figure out the reasoning really rubs me the wrong way. ]]
[[To be entirely fair, musing on exactly how probably-town players could be mafia is something I do, too... I find it a nice exercise in okay but what if, keeping those counterfactuals open so as to remember how it could be possible.]]
[[ Would just like to say that, regardless of Dave's alignment, I love getting their input, because we get things like this. Dragonfree's brain always seems to be running and trying to see things from every angle, and I'm really glad she's basically confirmed town at this point because she's very reliable when we know she's on your side. (Going back to my earlier musings on who I consider "experienced players" and why.) ]]
I didn't realize he was actually busy with college exams--if I'd have known that, I would have taken that into account and wouldn't have been so quick to vote for him.
[[ I'm perfectly willing to consider the notion that you flat-out didn't realize this was an option, but I do find it rather odd how you did not change your vote at the end of this post, despite saying you'd have done so if you realized why he was inactive... which, obviously, you did before the voting deadline. Even if it didn't influence the result, if that was your only reason for voting an inactive (you didn't realize he had given a valid IRL reason), then you could have at least attempted to take suspicion off you by changing that vote. You didn't. Again, I realize this simply could have slipped your mind, but I admit it does make me actually sus you now. ]]
I'm just quoting this because this is exactly how I feel and inkedust said it better than I could, haha. This is also my first mafia, I have never played with all these roles and abilities and what have you, and this is also my first RP, so kind of a double whammy there. I'm obviously making a lot of mistakes, but, like Ink, I'm trying to make it clear that I AM on the town's side. And seriously--give me at least another day and I might be able to actually prove that. Okay, gonna try to get in character now.]]
[[ This is literally me for the last several days. Obviously it hasn't gone very well for me, either, and I'm also trying not to hold it against anyone else because I know I'm not happy with people holding it over me, regardless of how blundering my mistakes might be... but to be blunt, you still haven't really said or done anything to ease the pressure on you (and, in fact, as I stated above, actually made me sus you harder). ]]
Wes glanced at Alexander. "Well, if this Cold Fusion has the potential to be a serious threat...I'd be willing to change my vote. I only voted for that Lucario because he hasn't said a single thing yet, which seemed suspicious to me."
[[ Again, I'd be willing to believe this if you so much as un-voted for Lance while you reconsidered who you really wanted to target. Discounting out-of-game reasons (because I think three of the four inactives DID give reasons on discord, with Lance being one of them), there were like three others who haven't said a single thing yet, and even if changing your vote wouldn't have changed the final results, it might have made you look a little more believable. ]]
[[ I guess it could just be dependent on person and model/brand of phone, but that's not an issue we need to debate now. I will, however, say that (as I posted on like page 22 or 23) trying to quote a post, especially only a specific part of a post you want to directly respond to rather than leaving the entire text wall is a fucking nightmare on mobile, at least on iphone. Not everyone enjoys doing so. So yeah, I get that it might not be valid to you, but I absolutely do not enjoy posting from my phone. I will admit it's not a fantastic defense, but I hate it enough to avoid posting unless I feel it's really necessary.
It also explains why your posts tend to be shorter and more to the point. I much prefer to talk out my thoughts. Perhaps I do that a little too much, but the more words to type, the more exhausting it is to do on a fucking keyboard that's too small for my thumb.]]
Okay, that was a lot to get caught up on, and that's not even considering anything posted since d-3 started. I will try to respond to that later tonight, but I... need to take a break.
[[ I will make a larger IC/OOC post addressing some stuff later, but for now: DW, unless I skimmed over it, did you explain why you're "confused" by my N1 action? I'd be more than happy to explain it to you, or anyone else. ]]
[[Very fair point. My read on Chappie was more-so based on the tone of her posts more than anything else. I don't consider anyone listed under my "town" reading to be "confirmed" innocent, just that I had a good feeling about them. I'll be withholding any further judgements there until I see more from Abra/Chappie.]]
Actually, can’t deaths still happen after the Arsonist dies? Or am I understanding that incorrectly? Either way, it seems we might have a vigilante on our hands.]]
Dead people can't use night actions. Arsonist lighting people on fire is a night action. Therefore, Arsonist-caused deaths cannot happen when the Arsonist is dead.
[[ I will make a larger IC/OOC post addressing some stuff later, but for now: DW, unless I skimmed over it, did you explain why you're "confused" by my N1 action? I'd be more than happy to explain it to you, or anyone else. ]]
Didn't you say the reason you swapped Chibi and Spark was because you didn't think anyone would target either of them? Even though Chibi is famous for dying N1?
Also not relevant to the N1 action confusion but who'd you swap nights 0 and 2?
